Customer Care
Hello and Welcome to the new Customer Care Libguide!
Click the tabs above to find information on Customer Service Excellence, Welcome to Excellence, and Service Desk Best Practice. The tabs below offer training materials, some helpful tips on what not to do, and a chance to test your customer care knowledge and offer some thoughts on the subject.
What is Customer Service Excellence (CSE)?!
CSE is our opportunity to show off what excellent customer service we provide to all of our library users. Every 3 years we have a full assessment and the assessor is in the Library for a day. The following 2 years the assessor will conduct annual reviews. Our last major assessment was in February 2023; and we were thrilled to be reaccredited and to have Compliance Plus against 8 criteria, that goes to show how truly amazing we are!
If you would like to learn a little more about the criteria from our most recent CSE assessment, you can do so here.
Piqued your interest?
This video is from the 2023 Cross Sectional on Customer Service Excellence, and gives a brief introduction to what it is and why it's so valuable to the Library.
All staff will be invited to attend two Welcome to Excellence workshops during their first year at the Library. Welcome Host and Welcome All are part of the Welcome to Excellence suite of customer service training programmes developed by the Regional Tourist Board Partnership. The courses have been adapted by the library to reflect our specific services.
Welcome Host is an introductory course, which introduces staff to the customer care ethos and values of the Library. The Welcoming All workshop is an opportunity for us to share experience and best practice in delivering a library service to customers with a disability. We want to provide a warm welcome and high standards of service for all our customers.
We have brought together many of the materials used in the workshops in these online guides. They are intended for any library staff who are unable to attend the face to face session and also for staff who just wish to refresh their skills and knowledge. Simply follow the links below to complete the training:
Welcome Host: https://libguides.ncl.ac.uk/welcomehost
Welcome All: https://newcastle-uk.libwizard.com/f/Welcome_All
The Service Desk Practice document serves as a little reminder of the do's and don'ts of working on the service desk. It just helps us stop slipping into any bad habits and upsetting our customers....
It's short and sweet and well worth a quick glance over every now and then - especially just before busy exam periods and the start of the new academic year! Click the link below to download the document and refamiliarize yourself with it.
Need an opportunity to refresh your customer care knowledge? There are plenty of training materials available to help!
- Our internal self-directed training website, 'Elements', has a module on Customer Service to 'explore the skills involved in caring for your customers and find out why and how to put the customer first' - click the link, sign in, and enrol here: 'Customer Service training module'.
You can view our internal guidance before completing Elements courses you are interested in, available as a PDF file by clicking here 'Elements Guidance Doc PDF'. Or alternatively find this file on our T drive:
- If you've been unable to attend 'Welcome Host' or 'Welcoming All' in person, or just want to refresh your memory then you can review the materials online by clicking the above links or the banner below..
- You can watch the Visual Identity cross-sectional on ‘Accessibility and Inclusion’ below, but will need to be signed in (click sign in):
- The 'Wellbeing Hub', part of our Learning Lab, hosts guide pages on various conditions or additional needs which may affect our patrons and so occasion some reasonable adjustments to our service. There's also info on what additional services we can be aware of for signposting.
Click on the 'Wellbeing Hub' link for info on 'Autism', 'Dyslexia' and a general 'Mental Health' libguide.
- Why not practice what we preach?! There are also a number of books in our Library catalogue which offer useful information and tips on customer care! Search 'customer care' on Library Search to have a browse:
We all want to give that quality
So how about a refresh with our Customer Focus Quiz!
Praise for the Team!
Here at Newcastle University Libraries we always give fantastic customer service. Below are some of the lovely compliments from our customers.
Useful Links
Check out how we are graded on our Customer Service Excellence: Customer Service Excellence Criteria 2023
Top up your own excellence by enrolling in our Elements Customer Care training module (ensure you are logged in)
Our fantastic Welcome Host training has gone online for refreshers or those unable to attend in person: Welcome Host online!
Welcoming All is all about accommodating customers who may have additional needs: Welcoming All online!
The 'Wellbeing Hub', part of our Learning Lab, hosts guide pages on various conditions or additional needs which may affect our patrons: Wellbeing Hub